Obesity was highly prevalent among the study sample; 64.6% of females and 41.2% of males were obese according to Polynesian cutoffs (BMI ≥ 32 kg/m2). Females were less likely than males to have hypertension (31.7% vs. 36.7%) but equally likely to have diabetes (17.8% vs. 16.4%).

Sure, although it was an innovative new scale of measurement at the time, I think it's still really important to recognize the fairly dangerous limitations that BMI, and even IQ, offered (and continue to offer us today). I highly doubt Galton or Quetelet ever considered the potential harm that their "scales" could inflict, but they created objective standards for qualities that are inherently nuanced. BMI, for instance, has no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle, and fat in the body. Bone is denser than muscle, which is also denser than fat; so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI and therefore be considered overweight. Disturbingly, contemporary institutions have still hold a lot of stock in these antiquated measurements, which leads me to this jarring middle school flashback: my gym teacher calculated the BMI of all the adolescent girls in my class and declared 1/3 of us to be approaching emaciation, 1/3 to be "normal" and the other 1/3 to be obese. In hindsight, it's a miracle that I emerged from that lesson without any serious body dysmorphia issues. Thx Quetelet.